LITR 4232 American Renaissance

Hawthorne, “Young Goodman Brown,” 

Thursday, 23 March: Hawthorne, “Young Goodman Brown.” (2258-67)

Reader: Amanda Hanne

Tuesday, 28 March: Herman Melville, introduction + begin Billy Budd (through section 17)

Reader: Michael Tran

Thursday, 30 March: Melville, Billy Budd (complete)

Web-highlighter: Tallia Ortiz (midterms on Billy Budd)

Hawthorne as gothic

What are identifiable gothic elements, techniques?

What peculiar spin on gothic for Hawthorne? What does he use the gothic to achieve?

Hawthorne as distinctive stylist

What about Hawthorne's style and subject are distinctive? How do you recognize a passage as Hawthorne's?

How can you tell both stories are written by the same author?

Why does Hawthorne matter? Even if you might not read him otherwise, why do English teachers constantly return to him?

What qualities make Hawthorne a "classic writer?" What pleasures / problems arise from classic literature?

Melville: "classic literature" at its most extreme

Author of Moby-Dick--the great American novel that most people can't imagine reading . . . .

Billy Budd is considerably shorter--either a long story or a short novel.

But classic Melville style

Questions for next class:

How do Melville and Billy Budd exemplify "classic literature?"

What are the costs and benefits of teaching / reading classic literature of the most demanding style?

Align Billy Budd and classic literature with Horace's "two purposes of literature: to entertain and educate"--? What kind of balance in popular and classic literature?

costs: top students eat classic literature like candy

struggling students struggle more than ever

Arrangement of next class:

appears that Michael, our reader, is no longer attending, so try another discussion approach:

Everyone be prepared to identify two passages in the assignment for Billy Budd: 

one passage that worked for you (and why)

one passage that didn't work or puzzles (and why)

We'll try to coordinate with questions about classic literature above

Hawthorne as gothic

What are identifiable gothic elements, techniques?

What peculiar spin on gothic for Hawthorne? What does he use the gothic to achieve?

Hawthorne incorporates gothic in a new way

takes advantage of appearance of Puritans, typically dressed in sober dark garments with some white clothing.

Here's our earlier scheme from Cooper's Mohicans

Now let's change the patterns and subjects for Hawthorne

What qualities make Hawthorne a "classic writer?" What pleasures / problems arise from classic literature?

"classic" as "book that stays open"

generation after generation reads a classic

individual readers return to classics and re-read them over again

Why?

Some sense of eternal truth

But also fresh meaning for new readers or re-readers

Question:

According to all traditional instructions or ethics, Young Goodman Brown seems to "do the right thing" by resisting joining his fellow townspeople in accepting his place as an evildoer, etc.

But is it the right thing to have done?

How can it be morally justified to say that Brown did wrong by doing right?

Purpose of literature, from Roman Poet Horace

"to entertain and elevate"

There has to be some pleasure or entertainment or escape involved, or most people wouldn't read

But there also should be something gained from reading: information, significance, meaning, exercise in thinking

The balance between "entertain" and "elevate" can determine popular vs. classic literature

compare "morality" and "moralism"

"moralism" as strict distinction between right and wrong--attractive for simplicity, but dangerous in its vanity--almost always the speaker is "right" and the other side is wrong--where's the humility?

At least as a contrast, "morality" is more of an exploratory concept of the borders between right and wrong rather than an absolute division between right and wrong--permits sharing of responsibility and accountability--less immediately satisfying than being upheld in simple divisions of right and wrong, but usually fairer in the long run, less prone to dangerous action, more inclined to humility than arrogance

Other qualities of Hawthorne (and others) as "classic" author

Truth as large, complex, elusive > humans as limited > humility, sympathy

symbols foregrounded, must be interpreted (but act of interpretation never completed)

gothic as light and dark = states of mind

light and dark as "shades of gray" (note how this figure of speech uses light and dark in moral terms but admits confusion)

stylistic idiosyncrasy of Hawthorne: use of "qualifiers"

What does it mean to "qualify" one's speech?

"So-and-so is stupid, evil, and wrong!"

(Anyone who can speak thus is extreme in their expression.)

"You need to qualify what you're saying."

back it up?

"I have seen so-and-so in many situations, and in all of them s/he has acted in such a way that no reasonable person could regard them as intelligent, moral, and just."

This is a qualified statement. Leaves wiggle room, room for disagreement, leaves room to keep talking and thinking.

Webster's definition:

1a. to reduce from a general to a particular or restricted form: modify

1b. to make less harsh or strict: moderate

1c. to alter the strength or flavor of

d. to limit or modify the meaning of

qualifiers—may have, could have
(Look for in "Young Goodman Brown"; also see in Melville)

as if

[qualifiers] might have been taken for father and son

may have been an ocular deception . . . uncertain light

doubtless [irony]

no slight similitude [indirect speech]  

Hawthorne & Puritans

Popular mind and history:

The past is all at the same depth. If you lived a long time ago, you knew everyone else who lived a long time ago. One period "collapses" into the other.

Great example: Xena, Warrior Princess--Caesar, Charlemagne, and Hercules might appear in a single episode. Hey, it's the past, isn't it? I don't hear any of those dead people complaining . . . .

Historical mind learns different depths of history, e. g. early American literature and culture. If Hawthorne is "early," then what does that make the Puritans?

Major period for Puritanism in New England

1630s-1690s (settlement of Boston > Salem Witch Trials)

Hawthorne's life: 1804-1864

Hawthorne lived about as close to our time as to the early Puritans

Point: Hawthorne probably had a closer sense of the Puritans than we can, but already for him they were a long time ago, and he was writing about them for people who were riding streetcars, learning about photography, etc.

Hawthorne's particular uses of Puritanism:

most interesting group of American immigrants

Most immigrants come to America for economic opportunity, and that was part of the attraction for Puritans, but mostly they came because they wanted to build a more perfect and moral society, and they made about as fair an effort as other such attempts in history.

Hawthorne uses their moral seriousness as a way of exploring complex problems of human psychology, conscience, community, etc.

Hawthorne incorporates gothic in a new way

takes advantage of appearance of Puritans, typically dressed in sober dark garments with some white clothing.

Here's our earlier scheme from Cooper's Mohicans

Now let's change the patterns and subjects for Hawthorne

Hawthorne as classic writer

"classic" as "book that stays open"

generation after generation reads a classic

individual readers return to classics and re-read them over again

Why?

Some sense of eternal truth

But also fresh meaning for new readers or re-readers

Question:

According to all traditional instructions or ethics, Young Goodman Brown seems to "do the right thing" by resisting joining his fellow townspeople in accepting his place as an evildoer, etc.

But is it the right thing to have done?

How can it be morally justified to say that Brown did wrong by doing right?

Purpose of literature, from Roman Poet Horace

"to entertain and elevate"

There has to be some pleasure or entertainment or escape involved, or most people wouldn't read

But there also should be something gained from reading: information, significance, meaning, exercise in thinking

The balance between "entertain" and "elevate" can determine popular vs. classic literature

Hawthorne's career as classic author 

2171 difficulty of career as author

2171 "twelve lonely years" as developing author

2171 Twice-Told Tales published 1837--critically praised, but no large audience

2171 supplement income through political appointment (European tradition of patronage of intellectuals through government sinecures)

2172 Utopian commune of Brook Farm 1841 (provided subject matter for 1852 novel The Blithedale Romance)

2172 He had no trouble selling what he wrote; but his pen did not provide enough support, esp. after birth of daughter Una 1844

"America is now given over to a d----d mob of scribbling women."

Franklin Pierce president of USA 1853-57 was Hawthorne's college roommate at Bowdoin College in Maine

2172 Hawthorne appointed Consul to Liverpool, 1853-57

1857-59 Rome and Florence

1860 The Marble Faun

2173 For more than a century, despite changes in perspective and methodology, the verdict on Hawthorne's stature has remained virtually constant.

Other qualities of Hawthorne (and others) as "classic" author

Truth as large, complex, elusive > humans as limited > humility, sympathy

symbols foregrounded, must be interpreted (but act of interpretation never completed)

gothic as light and dark = states of mind

light and dark as "shades of gray" (note how this figure of speech uses light and dark in moral terms but admits confusion)

stylistic idiosyncrasy of Hawthorne: use of "qualifiers"

What does it mean to "qualify" one's speech?

"So-and-so is stupid, evil, and wrong!"

(Anyone who can speak thus is extreme in their expression.)

"You need to qualify what you're saying."

back it up?

"I have seen so-and-so in many situations, and in all of them s/he has acted in such a way that no reasonable person could regard them as intelligent, moral, and just."

This is a qualified statement. Leaves wiggle room, room for disagreement, leaves room to keep talking and thinking.

Webster's definition:

1a. to reduce from a general to a particular or restricted form: modify

1b. to make less harsh or strict: moderate

1c. to alter the strength or flavor of

d. to limit or modify the meaning of

qualifiers—may have, could have
(Look for in "Young Goodman Brown"; also see in Melville)

2191 as if

2187 [qualifiers] might have been taken for father and son

2187 may have been an ocular deception . . . uncertain light

2189 doubtless [irony]

2193 no slight similitude [indirect speech]  

review symbols

Last class: example of flag

Symbol must first of all be an image, something that can be seen or otherwise sensed. 

cultural example: A flag is a piece of colored cloth.

literary example: the minister's black veil

But an image becomes a symbol by accessing or providing meaning(s) beyond the mere fact of the image.

cultural example: The flag stands for patriotism, military honor, the American Dream.

literary example: 

Symbols gain power by resisting reduction to a single meaning.

cultural example: The flag can mean different things to different people. If it only means one thing, fewer people salute (or jeer).

literary example: 

The various meanings transmitted by symbols become perceptible from different audiences or perspectives.

cultural example: 

literary example: 

Bedford Glossary of Critical Terms

symbol: something that, although it is of interest in its own right, stands for or suggests something larger and more complex--often an idea or a range of interrelated ideas, attitudes, and practices.
    Within a given culture, some things are understood to be symbols: the flag of the United States is an obvious example, as are the five intertwined Olympic rings. More subtle cultural symbols might be the river as a symbol of time . . . . [W]riters often create their own symbols by setting up a complex but identifiable web of associations in their works.

A Handbook to Literature

Symbol A symbol is something that is itself and also stands for something else . . . as a flag is a piece of colored cloth that stands for a country. All language is symbolic in this sense . . . .

All-American Glossary of Literary Terms (research links)

symbol (sim-bol): a symbol is a word or object that stands for another word or object. . . . For example a dove stands for Peace. The dove can be seen and peace cannot. . . . Misty Tarlton, Student, University of North Carolina at Pembroke

Virtual Salt Glossary of Literary Terms

Symbol. Something that on the surface is its literal self but which also has another meaning or even several meanings. For example, a sword may be a sword and also symbolize justice. A symbol may be said to embody an idea. There are two general types of symbols: universal symbols that embody universally recognizable meanings wherever used, such as light to symbolize knowledge, a skull to symbolize death, etc., and constructed symbols that are given symbolic meaning by the way an author uses them in a literary work, as the white whale becomes a symbol of evil in Moby Dick.

"Style": combination of literary techniques and subject matter or themes that are associated with a particular writer, which the writer develops over his or her career. With the best writers, it is sometimes impossible to disentangle literary techniques from subject matter (as in Hawthorne's development of the Gothic or Henry James's explorations of consciousness through point-of-view).

Review Poe's Style

Poe's literary techniques:

Musicality, dreaminess, sensory pleasure in language

European gothic: ancient buildings, family curses, esoteric learning

Gothic color scheme: black and white + red or other lurid color ("blood-red moon" at conclusion of "Usher," "drop of ruby fluid" in "Ligeia")

romance narrative as desire & loss

"Excess": Poe piles on superlatives ("the most . . . ") in effort to push consciousness to extremes of fear, sublime, etc.

Oxymoron: "verdant decay"

Poe's subject matter:

Origination and development of popular genres: detective story, science fiction, gothic / horror

death of beautiful woman

Gothic as psychology: haunted castle as haunted mind (correspondence between internal and external worlds)

Hawthorne’s themes / subject matter

Influence of Puritanism (Reformed or Calvinist Protestantism) in New England: "Original Sin," vanity of human wishes even as we try to build heaven on earth
"Black Veil" 2197 The subject had reference to secret sin

Thus imperfection amidst strivings, but can be strangely positive: "tragic beauty"

transience, impermanence of truth, beauty--appears always "on the wing" (cf. Emily Dickinson, Melville, Wallace Stevens)
Scarlet Letter: momentary beauty when Hester & Dimmesdale meet in the woods
"Black Veil" 2197 A sad smile gleamed faintly from beneath the black veil, and flickered about his mouth, glimmering as he disappeared.

Acknowledgement of human sinfulness, frailty, failure can lead to human unity, fellowship; humility as unifying force (Recognizable in Christianity and other world religions)
Scarlet Letter: Hester's humility makes the "A" stand for "Angel"
"Black Veil"2197 Each member of the congregation, the most innocent girl, and the man of hardened breast
2201 Its gloom, indeed, enabled him to sympathize with all dark affections.

2192 instinct that guides mortal men to evil

2192 chaste dames and dewy virgins + men of dissolute lives and women of spotted fame [cf. Whitman]

2193 sympathy of your human hearts for sin

2194 Evil is the nature of mankind . . . the communion of your race!

What, but the mystery . . has made this piece of crape so awful

Vanity, pride, certainty as divisive, arrogant, controlling of others rather than sharing with others
Scarlet Letter: Dimmesdale's suffering becomes selfish, self-aggrandizing; Chillingworth's sense of being wronged leads him to manipulate Dimmesdale for sake of vengeance
"Black Veil" 2201 love could never reach him (cf. Brown)

gender:
vain, delusionary, obstinate man; sensible, flexible woman who resists categories, fantasies
Scarlet Letter: Hester & Dimmesdale
"Black Veil" 2199 [Elizabeth] entered upon the subject, with a direct simplicity . . . .
2200 And with this gentle, but unconquerable obstinacy, did he resist all her entreaties

No final conclusion or "moral" to dilemmas
"Black Veil" 2201 love could never reach him (cf. Brown)
2201 a very efficient clergyman

Representation of human consciousness as complex, flawed, adventurous but failing--cf. Henry James

Hawthorne's literary techniques

some typical gothic materials, but treated lightly, quickly compared to Poe; fanciful rather than absorbed
"Black Veil"  2201 customary walk to graveyard
2198 dead maiden risen from the grave
2201 decay: "good Mr. Hooper's face is dust, but awful is still the thought, that it mouldered beneath the Black Veil!"

gothic as light and dark = states of mind
as in Poe, "correspondence" implied between outward physical world and inner metaphysical world

as with Poe, psychological interests
"Black Veil" 2200 perhaps a symptom of mental disease

But also gothic light and dark as meeting, blending of moral states, good and evil

Typical "moral color scheme" in Western Civilization (be careful to qualify it thus, because from some perspectives it's potentially racist. For instance, African and African American poetry often represent darkness as love, fertility, comfort, etc. Research "the Black Aesthetic" [i. e., "black is beautiful"])

Light = good

Dark = evil

But Hawthorne complicates such divisions anyway!--Light and dark often intermix, just as good and evil (or faith and error) are always entangled in human existence.

light and dark as "shades of gray" (note how this figure of speech uses light and dark in moral terms but admits confusion)
"Black Veil" 2201 a cloud into the sunshine, an ambiguity of sin and sorrow

intrusion of red, pink, scarlet colors (the "scarlet letter"; Faith's ribbon in "Young Goodman Brown")

correspondence between interior and exterior
"Black Veil" 2198 dimmed the light of the candles
2199 the Earth, too, had on her Black Veil

symbols foregrounded, must be interpreted (but act of interpretation never completed)
"Black Veil" 2199 symbol of a fearful secret
2200 this veil is a type and a symbol
2201 only a material emblem had separated him from happiness
2201 by the aid of this mysterious emblem . . . .

shifting viewpoint
"Black Veil" 2196 [viewpoint] [thrice]
2198 [viewpoint shifts thrice again]

2188 [competing visions of fathers]

truth as evanescent, ephemeral, transient, elusive: "flickering," "glimmering"
"Black Veil" 2197 A sad smile gleamed faintly from beneath the black veil, and flickered about his mouth, glimmering as he disappeared.
2200 glimmered faintly

qualifiers—may have, could have
(Look for in "Young Goodman Brown"; also see in Melville)

2191 as if

2187 [qualifiers] might have been taken for father and son

2187 may have been an ocular deception . . . uncertain light

2189 doubtless [irony]

2193 no slight similitude [indirect speech]  

"something"--Hawthorne leaves a void that reader participates in filling
"Black Veil" 2196 . . . there was something, either in the sentiment of the discourse itself, or in the imagination of the auditors, which made it greatly the most powerful effort that they had ever heard from their pastor's lips.
2203 What, but the mystery . . has made this piece of crape so awful
cf. Poe, "Ligeia" 2392: "What was it--that something . . . which lay far within the pupils of my beloved? What was it? . . . we often find ourselves on the very verge of remembering
anticipates Whitman in "Crossing Brooklyn Ferry": "What is it then between us?"

2171 warning against simplistic moral judgments

2171 As in a dream, his fiction pushes beyond surface reality, conveying knowledge that resists complete understanding

subtlety

Puritan gothic

2186 Salem village

2192 a grave and dark-clad company

2191 the forest, where no church had ever been gathered, nor solitary Christian prayed. . . . the heathen wilderness [Puritan rationale for wilderness gothic] cf. Mather 497

Bradford 315 hideous and desolate wilderness (fallen nature, domain of Satan, Indians)

Mather 497   

Hawthorne's themes & style

Hawthorne’s themes, ideas

Brotherhood in sin > humility (x-vanity, pride)

truth as evanescent, ephemeral, transient, elusive

vain, delusionary, obstinate man; sensible, flexible woman who resists categories, fantasies

Hawthorne's style

gothic as light and dark = states of mind, "shades of gray"

intrusion of red, pink, "scarlet" colors

symbols that must be interpreted

correspondence

shifting viewpoint--"flickering," "glimmering"

qualifiers—may have, could have; irony; indirect style

"something"--reader participates

alternating perspectives 

2188 [competing visions of fathers]

qualifiers; irony; indirect style

2191 as if

2187 [qualifiers] might have been taken for father and son

2187 may have been an ocular deception . . . uncertain light

2189 doubtless [irony]

2193 no slight similitude [indirect speech]

Brotherhood in sin > humility (x-vanity, pride)

2192 instinct that guides mortal men to evil

2192 chaste dames and dewy virgins + men of dissolute lives and women of spotted fame [cf. Whitman]

2193 sympathy of your human hearts for sin

2194 Evil is the nature of mankind . . . the communion of your race!

What, but the mystery . . has made this piece of crape so awful

“Young Goodman Brown,” 2207-2216.  

2186 Salem village

2186 Faith, as wife was aptly named

2187 [wilderness gothic]

2187 [qualifiers] might have been taken for father and son

2187 may have been an ocular deception . . . uncertain light

2188 [competing visions of fathers]

2188 a people of prayer x state-secrets

2189 doubtless [irony]

2189 taken into communion tonight

2190 a gloomy hollow of the road

2190 vanished into the deepening gloom

2190 [trick of light?]

2191 the forest, where no church had ever been gathered, nor solitary Christian prayed. . . . the heathen wilderness [Puritan rationale for wilderness gothic] cf. Mather 497

2191 lamentations, yet with an uncertain sorrow

2191 scream

2191 pink ribbon

2191 heart of the dark wilderness

2192 instinct that guides mortal men to evil

2191 as if

2191 But he was himself the chief horror of the scene, and shrank not from its other horrors.

2192 black pines, red light, lurid blaze

2192 blasphemy, laughter, demons > demoniac

2192 fitfully illuminating

2192 a numerous congregation alternately shone forth, then disappeared in shadow, and again grew, as it were, out of the darkness, peopling the heart of the solitary woods at once.  [quiz on ID—how know this is Hawthorne?]

2192 a grave and dark-clad company

2192 Either . . . or [irresolution]

2192 chaste dames and dewy virgins + men of dissolute lives and women of spotted fame [cf. Whitman]

2193 no slight similitude [indirect speech]

2193 secret deeds

2193 sympathy of your human hearts for sin

2194 Evil is the nature of mankind . . . the communion of your race!

2194 cheek besprinkled with the coldest dew

2194 [cf. Rip Van Winkle] Had Goodman Brown fallen asleep in the forest, and only dreamed a wild dream of a witch meeting?

2194 Be it so, if you will

2194 distrustful, if not a desperate man

2195 could not listen 

2195 dying hour was gloom

“The Minister’s Black Veil”

2196 [viewpoint] [thrice]

2196 something

2197 The subject had reference to secret sin

2197 Each member of the congregation, the most innocent girl, and the man of hardened breast

2197 lighter spirits, the moment they lost sight of the black veil

2197 [physical explanation]

2197 flickered

2197 influence [correspondence]

2197 funeral of a young lady [cf Poe]

2198 [viewpoint shifts thrice again]

2198 a fancy [vision of minister and dead maiden]

2198 dimmed the light of the candles 

[romantic correspondence between interior and exterior]

2198 dead maiden risen from the grave

2199 catching a glimpse of [himself], the black veil involved his own spirit

2199 the Earth, too, had on her Black Veil

2199 symbol of a fearful secret

2199 [Elizabeth as sensible woman]

2200 let the sun shine

2200 glimmered faintly

2200 this veil is a type and a symbol

[idea that man is vain, woman sensible]

2200 like a faint glimmering of light

2200 for secret sin, what mortal might not do the same?

2200 so dark a fantasy

2200 perhaps a symptom of mental disease

2200-01 dialogue, cf. Katrina in "Sleepy Hollow"

2201 customary walk to graveyard

faces behind the grave-stones, peeping at his black veil

2201 x-mirror, still fountain

2201 a cloud into the sunshine, an ambiguity of sin and sorrow

2201 love could never reach him (cf. Brown)

2201 a very efficient clergyman

2201 sympathize

influence on legislative measures

shaded candlelight

deepen the gloom of his darksome chamber

corpse sits up

glimmer

What, but the mystery . . has made this piece of crape so awful

decay 

review "M's Black Veil": Hawthorne's themes and style

culture wars on

absolute truth x relativism

intellectually honest: neither and both

not same as saying there is no truth; only that we see truth on the wing; so complex and dynamic that it doesn't sit still